


Counting on the Wrong Things

by noconceptoflife



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Ableism, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Background Grimmons, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Mental Health Issues, Minor Violence, Multi, Mutual Pining, Open Relationships, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic Attacks, Polyamory, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Slow Burn, Tex is the only POV in this story, background docnut, background flyoming, the tuckington is mostly background
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-17
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-09-18 01:40:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9359987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noconceptoflife/pseuds/noconceptoflife
Summary: For the first time in her life Tex is done running. Not by her choice, but the ultimatum was clear. No more running, no more lying, and try to put some effort into improving. That, or she can leave and never come back. With most of her old friends alienated and Church's friends not trusting her she has a long way to go.It's not all bad. There's a woman who makes Tex smile like never before, a man that makes Church feel like he's younger, and a man that makes Church and Tex both feel the most content they've ever felt. With late-night duck feeding, cake, fistfights, and a collection of mismatched furniture, it's just what Texas needs.





	1. What Makes a Smoothie?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A smoothie is a thick, smooth drink made with fresh fruit pureed with milk, yogurt, or ice cream

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Abelism and infidelity are mentioned in this chapter.

There are a lot of things that Texas can count on. She can count on the truck she’s had for ten years that yet to falter under her hands. She can count on throwing on her military jacket that’s worn through at the elbows to catch the eye of whatever man looks twice at her. She's always been able to count on charming rough men with a smile and a flirtatious word. Tex can count on her fists and her strength to get her out of any tight spot. When she feels worn enough and the road feels more empty than inviting, she can count on something to come back to.

Church isn’t hard to track down. Church’s job is just working with his sister in the gym she owns and staying up late at night in his awful apartment working figures, how can he get this house? She shakes her head at herself. This is Church, what can’t he do? The BEWARE OF DOG sign on the fence that wraps around their backyard reminds her of home.

She smiles at the outside of the house. The flower garden is all new flowers, the kind that are bought from the store and planted in the soil with light petals and pastel colors. Considering Church’s fondness for cacti, this must not be a garden he’s done himself. The lawn has been recently trimmed, but no one has been watering it regularly so it’s patchy with the lighter greens and browns of irregular rainfall.

This house is painted blue and another house down the street is painted a garish red hue. The old Sarge has never been one to back down from a perceived challenge, so he must have followed Church’s lead and upgraded as well. Even though the different groups of friends seem to hate each other, they always circle around each other as well. It’s something else to count on.

The driveway is gravel, and the path to the door is cobblestone. It’s not a new house, it gives off the image of someone wanting to be regular-seeming in the seventies. The neighborhood isn’t new, but all the empty houses on this street are telling. It’s not to the taste of traditional families anymore, and too expensive for people just starting out to buy. In this economy it’s not surprising. It’s smart for Church to take advantage of it.

When she knocks on the door she counts on Church to open the door and invite her in. She counts on the fridge being stocked with beer that they could share together. She counts on the fact that they’ll have a lot of sex and she’ll smoke after it like some protagonist of a bad detective story. They’ll fall back into their usual routine. She can count on it.

The person who opens the door is not Church.

The two stare at each other for a moment with surprise on both of their faces. The stranger gets over it first and starts eyeing Tex up and down. Tex’s first impression is that the woman is short, heavyset, and is obviously not wearing a bra. Tex can tell the woman is without a bra because the nightie she’s wearing is a liquid-looking sheer gossamer thing that hides nothing. It probably cost fifty dollars from a Victoria secret store and it a very bright pink color. At least the woman is wearing underwear, which Tex can see through the nightie. She can see a lot of other things too. Eyes on her face.

The woman starts them off. “If you’re looking for a Grif, the one who actually owns the business lives down the street.”

Well that’s confusing. She knows a Grif, the red Grif, and that he owns a restaurant downtown, but the wording of the sentence throws her off. “What?”

“I said-”

Tex speaks before the woman can repeat herself. “No, I’m not here for any Grif.”

“Then what’re you here for?” The woman asks

“Were you expecting someone else?” Tex asks. This woman clearly lives here, so she must be a roommate of Church’s. No way that Church could afford a place like this without help, even with a lot of saving.

“Yeah, my boyfriend is supposed to be back with his kid any time today since he went out of town.” The woman says with frown on her pretty face. “If I had known it was someone else I’d have made sure you couldn’t see my nipples. So who are you?”

Holy shit this is so far from beer and sex with her boyfriend. “I’m Church’s girlfriend.” Tex says.

The woman raises her eyebrows at that as understanding dawns on her face. “Ah! So you’re Texas? I expected you to look more like a redneck.” She steps back and to the side, a silent invitation to come inn.

“Just Tex, please.” She says. To be fair, ‘Texas’ as a name seems like it would belong in a trailer park with some sunburnt asshole yelling it across the street. Tex is a catchy nickname, so no one calls her by her first name, and fewer call her by her full name. Her military friends don’t even remember her last name, it’s just Agent Texas to them. She’s fine with that, it makes things easier for her if no one knows too much about her. It’s a comforting bit of paranoia that she’s used all her life.

The inside of the house has so many things going on that Tex doesn’t even know where to start. The walls in the entryway have been repainted a bright highlighter yellow color that strains the eyes to look at too long. Thankfully it’s so covered in pictures, posters, and other decorations that she can hardly see the color where it does show. The woman leads Tex through the living room that’s painted beige with darker beige carpeting like any house. Even with the normal setup of the living room it still looks like it’s a clashing combination of differences. The number of throw rugs causing bumps and lumps on the ground cover up the boring carpet. The decor on the walls has a more tasteful and organized arrangement which makes it pull together in a strange kind of tessellation. The contrasting furniture and decorations still gives it a very unique impression. It looks like it’s the contents of different people’s tastes thrown together in a mish-mash.

“Who’re you?” Tex finally asks the woman once she’s had her impression of the living room.

“The name’s Kaikaina, but everyone calls me ‘Sister’.” Kaikaina says. “Since you woke me up, I’ll be making us breakfast. What do you want?”

“It’s one in the afternoon.” Tex says as she follows her to the kitchen.

“I’m making myself a smoothie, you like strawberries? I’m gonna make some strawberry smoothies.” Kaikaina decides as she hustles into the kitchen. Tex follows Kaikaina, trying to not stare too hard at the tattooes she can see through the woman’s nightie. She’s got pretty brown skin, dotted with moles and colored with those pretty tattoos. It's cool looking and a lot bolder than anything that Tex would ever consider doing. That’s... really not something she should be seeing when they’re strangers.

The kitchen here looks less personalized. It looks brand new and is missing the wear and tear of a kitchen that's been lived properly in. The counters are a dark grey-black color to make it look like it’s granite when it’s really just processed wood. It also looks brand-new. The fridge doesn’t match the kitchen setup being large and chrome colored while the rest of the kitchen is brown and black. The fridge itself is covered in pictures and drawings made by a little kid. One of them is signed with a large JR.

Oh. “You’re Tucker’s wife? Junior’s mom?” Tex asks. Tucker must be living with Church now instead of just in the apartment across from him like their last setup. Junior must then live with them too.

“Wrong on both accounts, hot stuff.” Kaikaina says as she’s setting up the blender. “I’m Tucker’s girlfriend and Junior’s birth mother. I ain’t got any legal right to the kid.” she goes through the freezer to pull out a massive amount of frozen fruit as she talks. She picks out the strawberries and bananas before opening the fridge to get some other things. “You want a smoothie or no?”

“No.” Tex says. She wonders if she's rude for refusing

That feeling of rudeness goes right away when she sees what her host is making her smoothie out of. Kaikaina is piling strawberries, strawberry syrup, ice cream, and what she thinks is malt powder into the blender with the fruit. Milk fills up the rest of the space. What’s the difference between a milkshake and a smoothie? This woman’s breakfast seems more like a milkshake.

Tex starts to ask something but Kaikaina flips on the blender before she can get anything out. The awkward silence is drowned out by the crunching and grinding of the food being processed into something that can be sucked up with a straw.Kaikaina flips it off after a minute when she has her mostly-full blender of pink mess. It pours out into a tall blue plastic cup with enough to fill one or two more.

“So when is Church going to be back?” Tex asks when she can get a word in over the screaming machine.

“Wanna sip?” Kaikaina offers while holding out the glass that holds her breakfast.

Tex purses her lips. Her first instinct is to refuse, but it does look good. “Can I get a spoon?”

The smoothie is overwhelmingly sweet, and has the texture of a smoothie so it might as well be called one. Kaikaina sits at the counter, and the little chair makes her nightie ride up so much that Tex has to say something. “Uh, are you going to… go change at all?”

“I live here.” Kaikaina says, as if that explains everything. At Tex’s blank expression, the shorter woman sighs . “I can walk around with my tits out in my own house when Junior isn’t around.” She takes another large swallow from her drink. “Church bitches about it a little, but he doesn’t like me like that so it’s just annoying to him for some reason.”

Tex also thinks it’s blasphemy to wear a bra in the house she lives in, but her tits aren’t as distracting. Eyes on her face. “Right, so when is Church going to be here?” Tex asks again.

Kaikaina’s lips smooth into a faint pucker, as if considering Tex seriously. “Didn’t you hit Caboose with your car?” Kaikaina asks, her eyes narrowed with suspicion. “Didn’t you try to kidnap Junior too?”

Tex stares at Kaikaina, and then looks down. She can’t really feel angry at being called out like that, but it isn’t pleasant regardless. “That first one was an accident and I paid for all his hospital bills. That second one was a misunderstanding when Church made me take care of Junior without letting Tucker know.”

Kaikaina considers Tex for a few moments and shrugs. “Alright. Tucker doesn’t trust you and Caboose doesn’t think anything of you, but I don’t see a reason to kick you out yet.” She says. It feels like a kick to the chest but Tex ignores it. “Church is out back with Freckles and Caboose.” She flicks her head towards the back of the house.

Well. Damn, this isn’t what she’s been expecting at all. So the four of them are all living in this house together? Kaikaina must have heard all the stories that people like to embellish, but waited to form an opinion. Caboose isn’t a vengeful or mean person, but she knows that the man is weary around her after all the drama with the whole car accident thing. Tucker? Tucker is a good but obnoxious man. But… if he can manage a girlfriend like this then maybe there’s more to him than she’s aware of.

(Also she has no idea what or who a Freckles is.)

Kaikaina seems more interested in her breakfast than Tex anymore so the blonde woman takes that as an excuse to go. Kaikaina at least lets Tex steal another spoon of smoothie before throwing the spoon into the sink to clean later. She’s all set to go, but Tex can feel Kaikaina’s eyes on her as she leaves. When Tex turns around the woman is looking down at her ass and not glaring at her back, so at least it’s nothing negative. Tex can think about that later, for now she just wants to find her boyfriend.

There’s a small patio behind the house that she can see. The back door looks like it’s either brand new or the glass has recently been broken and replaced. The patio itself is painted a dark blue color as if someone had just slathered it with a paint roller and let someone with a brush fill in the bits missed by it. A barbeque grill sits on one side with signs that it’s recently been used. Some simple fire engine red patio furniture and a large banana-yellow umbrella completes the look. Whoever picked out the color scheme must be blind.

Tex leans on the edge of the patio and waits to be noticed. If she cared about anything else, she would note the sandbox with scattered toys and the playground that looks space-themed. It looks handmade as well so it’s likely they got their mechanic friends to make that for Junior.

But she doesn’t care about that. She cares about the scene going on in the middle of the backyard. Caboose is gleefully wrestling some large floppy toy from the jaws of a huge dog while Church watches.

Caboose is a mountain of a man, with dark fluffy hair and a face that’s never properly shaved. His complexion varies, from a light brown in winter to the dark tan he’s got from a lot of summer sun. Despite his looks he’s nothing more than a great big teddy bear with the strength of a ox. The dog looks like a mix between a boxer and something furrier, light brown in color with darker spots almost like… like Freckles. Obviously.

Caboose pulls the toy from the dog’s mouth and eagerly lopes across the yard to return it to Church. Church flings the toy out across the yard, sending Freckles after it and the Caboose to go and pull it free again.

Church looks good as always and Tex smiles at that. It’s the kind of dreamy smile that she only uses when no one is looking at her. He’s grown his hair out, wearing his wavy locks in a short ponytail. At least he’s kept his beard, she’s always liked that. Dark hair, olive toned skin, he’s always been a good looking man.

For most people that attraction flies out the window the moment he opens his mouth, but that hadn’t scared Tex away. She’d been taken by Leonard the second, son of her now-old boss. The rest had been history. Messy, hurtful, angry history, but history that keeps them both crawling back for each other.

Caboose looks up from wrestling the dog and freezes at seeing her. Freckles tears the slopper-sloppy rope toy out of his hands and drops it. Caboose’s hand snaps out and grabs onto the dog’s collar just as Freckles catches sight of her as well. It’s a good precaution as the canine starts letting out some impressively thunderous barks.

That draws Church’s attention. She expects him to roll his eyes and come jogging over to tell her some comment about not stealing anything and then if she wants a beer. That’s how it’s been, she counts on it.

He does none of those things.

Instead, he sets his jaw and goes over to Caboose. He coaxes the larger man down to whisper something into his ear. Caboose wrinkles his nose at what Church is saying, but sighs and nods in acceptance. He sits down, prompting the still softly-growling dog to grudgingly join him. Tex shouldn’t be as put off as she is. It’s perfectly reasonable to ask Caboose to take care of his dog before he goes to talk to her.

“Hey.” Tex says as she’s offering Church one of her shit-eating smiles.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” He snaps.

The smile falls from Tex’s face as if it’s been slapped off. What? She doesn’t let her confusion show, just morphing her face into a small smirk. “Like you’re not thrilled to see me.” She scoffs.

“Yeah, it is like I’m not thrilled to see you.” Church says. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he repeats. “It’s been six months!”

Church steps up to join her on the porch. She’s a full three inches taller than him, but they stare each other down as Church continues to speak. “Let me tell you something. You leave again, and take twice as long to come back as you normally do. Once you do come back, you find that I’ve finally got myself an actual place to live instead of my shitty apartment. And somehow you think you can just waltz in here and act like you’re welcome after that? I’ve been checking obituaries and the newspapers in other states thinking that something’s finally got you!”

Tex has no idea what it is she’s feeling. She defaults to defensive sarcasm. “Oh come on Leonard-.”

Church puts up a finger. “Do not take this moment to fuck with me Tex.” First names are dangerous territory.

Tex pushes her boyfriend’s finger out of her face. “Church, I’m fine. It just took longer for me to put myself together! It’s just like before.”

Church makes a disgusted noise. “You know, I don’t want to talk to you about your problems. You probably know your problems better than me. But for fucks sake! Has it ever occurred to you that maybe you leaving when you start to fall apart affects me too? I mean, you leave me to worry every time you leave! For all I know you might do something reckless enough to get yourself arrested for good. I can’t go and bail you out of a jail in New Mexico again-”

“That was one time!” Tex says. “And those circumstances were bullshit.”

“And you left just after that didn’t you!” Church continues on his tirade. “It’s not my job to be your crutch when you run out of battery. What am I supposed to do when I’m the one who helps you charge up on all your bullshit just to bail again.” Church waves his hands around for emphasis, a tic of his that she usually finds endearing. “Six months! You left for six months. You missed your own birthday! What kind of person does that?”

Caboose makes a worried noise, and Tex gives him a glare. The dirty look falters whe she sees he’s just watching Church with those expressive dark eyes of his. Ugh, she can’t be peeved with him, he’s just concerned over his friend.

“So what, you don’t want me anymore?” She asks.

Church’s teeth grind together. “I have a kid living here. I have Caboose and his dog living here. I can’t just drop everything for you anymore!” He says. Caboose makes a quiet hum at the mention of his name, still watching them.

Tex isn’t afraid of anything. There’s nothing that scares her, she’s come out of everything life has to throw at her and she’s come out swinging every time. Church hasn’t ever been anything she’d need to fear. He’s not strong, she doesn’t take his shit, there’s nothing dangerous with him. He’s a mess, but he’s steady and he loves her. It’s terrifying to think that might not be the case anymore.

Church catches her expression and holds his hands out. “Hey, no. I’m not going to throw you on the street, but this.” He waves his hands at her. “has to stop. I’m sick of you leaving when things get rough. I’d rather be okay and by myself than some bullshit four dollar bargain bin shitty thing built on miscommunication and resentment with you.” He says.

Tex doesn’t know what to say, but she tries. “So what does that mean for us?”

Church considers her before coming to a decision. “It means go get your bags and get yourself a beer. We hide the key to the beer fridge in the inside of the raisin bran cereal so Junior can’t get to it.” He says. “You interrupted Caboose and me while we were playing with Freckles, so you can go.”

Tex thinks it’s a dismissal. “Okay?” She tests.

“Okay, good. We can talk more later.” He turns and leaves her to go back inside on her own. She does so and leaves the porch door ajar so she can still hear him talking quietly to Caboose.

Kaikaina is still sucking down her smoothie, but asks Tex to get her a beer too. They crack their drinks open together before Tex leaves to the living room and Kaikaina remains with her breakfast.

Tex settles herself on the living room couch and takes a long drink from the can in her hand. It’s got the taste of cheap beer that’s just above the carbonated bitterness of most. She doesn’t recognize it, maybe it’s something Tucker picked up in one of the countries he sometimes goes to for work. The label isn’t Spanish, Tex can recognize Spanish.

Their cable television setup is fantastic, but she looks over the living room more than the episode of judge judy. She finally has time to look around, she might as well indulge.

Tucker’s influence is more in the decoration and knickknacks. These things are obviously from all around the world since his job as an anthropologist is going abroad and then coming home to study. Woven rugs that look firm and silky peek out under cheap shaggy rugs, with the designs ranging from all over. The geodes that sit on the shelves in all their different colors are tasteful and flashy, kind of like Tucker himself. The strings of crystal beads on the walls are beautiful and catch the filtered afternoon light. It’s all very pretty. Tex can easily imagine Tucker in the middle of it all, the colorful and attention-grabbing man he is.

Church’s influence is in all the more subdued things. Being a Texan there’s a few stupid texas-shaped things, like the dartboard and the ashtray she can see on the coffee table. There’s also a texas-shaped mirror on the wall that obscures most of a Bon Jovi poster that she had gotten him as a joke a few years ago. The couch is from his old apartment, and so are the throw blankets.

The woman she’s not so sure about. There are posters of tasteful pinups on part of the wall, and then some of the furniture is so mismatched that it can’t be Tucker or Church. She has no idea what to think when it comes to Kaikaina and her tastes.

The house isn’t huge but it’s a good size for four people and a kid. She thinks that it might be one of those five bedroom three bath setups, maybe two bathrooms. Traditionally it would be for a family with three children, not a bunch of adults and one kid. Church’s never been one for tradition anyways, it suits him.

“Can I look around?” Tex calls out to Kaikaina.

“Knock yourself out!” Kaikaina calls back. It’s all the confirmation Tex needs.

Down the hall there are a number of rooms, but only two of them have the door open. She peeks in the first one and sees a fabulous child’s room. It must belong to Junior. It’s all space themed which seems oddly specific for a three year old. Glow in the dark star stickers are all over the wall and ceiling along with some messy paintings of planets and stars. The bed looks hand-made and is shaped like a rocket ship. She recognizes the handiwork, and the fact that the ship is brightly painted brick-red in a sea of blue gives it away. That old geezer might have a grudge against Church’s group, but the old man seems to have a fondness for Junior.

Toys of spaceships and ugly stuffed animals fill an overflowing toy box. She can see a stuffed bug on Junior’s bed and a large plastic model of one of the Halo aliens on his dresser. Junior’s always been an odd kid. She moves on to the next room that’s open.

Lord, this room hurts to look at. Nothing matches except the bedspread. It’s a mess too, just all color and discarded clothes. The littered stuff on the ground makes it clear that this it Kaikaina’s room. What kind of taste does this woman have to have her walls painted highlighter yellow with the hot pink carpet? Tex moves on, before it gives her a headache to be in any more.

The bathroom is incredibly normal, even if the bathtub is too big to be standard. It’s probably for Caboose and his bear-sized dog. There’s apparently another bathroom on this hall, but Tex doesn’t want to snoop and frankly if Kaikaina’s room looks like that she shudders to think about what her bathroom looks like. Kaikaina hustles down the hall after a while, phone clenched in her hand and hurriedly texting someone.

Tex finishes looking around the moment Kaikaina is finished changing into a plain chartreuse tee shirt and dark purple sweatpants. At least it’s more appropriate lazy clothes instead of what she’d been wearing beforehand. Tex is pretty sure it’s just because Tucker is about to show up.

Tex goes back to the living room and her beer and flips through different TV channels. Kaikaina joins her, but her eyes are on her phone.

The sound of keys in the lock and the slamming of an open door signify Tucker’s return. “Daddy’s home!” He yells out. Kaikaina bolts up and rushes to the front door. Tex stays in the living room, watching the final verdict of Judge Judy.

Junior comes running into the living room after that. He’s gotten so much bigger than when she saw him the last time. His curls have grown out a little, and he’s a few inches taller. Three years old, she thinks, the last time she really saw him was when he was a baby and the whole near-kidnapping happened. The accidental near-kidnapping. Junior freezes, his big brown eyes watching her for a solid ten seconds. She tries to wave, but he goes scuttling back the way he came when she moves.

Tucker appears after that with Junior dragging him in. Tucker looks tired, but good as normal. He looks like he’s just gotten out a furious lip-lock, with his dreads falling out of their ponytail and shirt all rumpled. He probably has just gotten out of a furious lip-lock if Kaikaina’s whoop of happiness was anything to go be. They stare at each other for a moment, Junior looking quizically between them.

Tucker goes to the back door and pulls it open, bypassing her immediately. “Church!”

“Hey, you’re late as hell!” Church yells back at him. “You missed your Caboose time!”

“What’s she doing here?” He calls, as if she’s not right there.

“She’s back from... wherever it is she was at.” Church answers.

“Is she staying here?”

“Yes!” The assertion lifts some of the weight off her shoulders. “Hopefully.” Church adds. Ah, there’s the weight again.

“Why?” Tucker asks. He actually looks at her this time. Tucker is an expressive person, but Tex can’t read anything he’s thinking right now.

“I’m a weak man but I’m gonna talk to her about the rules here later.” Church says. It’s a little sweet, that he says he’s weak for her.

Tucker sighs and closes the back door. He speaks to her directly now. “Alright! I hope you like Pizza, since that’s what we’re having for dinner.” He bends down to scoop Junior up. “Welcome back, for what it’s worth.”

“Good to be back.” She mutters as Tucker carries his kid away towards the kitchen. With that little happy reunion going on at the front of the house and Church still frolicking with Caboose she feels like more of a stranger here than she ever did while on the road.


	2. What Makes a Cake?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A cake is an item of soft, sweet food made from a mixture of flour, shortening, eggs, sugar, and other ingredients. It is baked and often decorated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings applying to this chapter: Panic attacks, discussions of past ableism, and anxiety.

Tex comes back from her morning run at eight every day. It’s a handful of circles around the nearby blocks with each run going farther so she can learn the area. Her hair goes up into a ponytail, she throws on some comfortable workout clothes, and it’s fine until she finds a new gym. It’s not enough for her to need a shower right away, but it’s enough to get her blood pumping. 

When she gets back to the house Caboose is waiting up for her. He’s relaxing in the living room, laying on the floor with Junior sitting on his back. It’s a Thursday so it’s Caboose’s day to look after Junior while Tucker is at work.

Kaikaina and Church have jobs too, Tex has learned. Kaikaina works the front of the restaurant that she co-owns with her brother. Her brother Grif does a lot of cooking and managing numbers and documents. Church and Carolina have a similar setup to the other brother-sister duo. Carolina runs that gym of hers that caters to veterans and disabled people while Church handles the finer details. 

Caboose has a job, but driving stresses him out too much so Church or someone else has to drive him there and back. It’s some kind of heavy lifting physical job that Maine helped him get. Caboose seems to like it, since he comes back, takes a shower, has a nap, and wakes up in an affectionate mood every time. It keeps him occupied and from getting too restless, and Maine helps him out at work when he struggles. Caboose doesn’t work on Thursdays, so that’s his Junior day.

Junior day is the day that people have to look after Junior. No daycare can please Tucker so Junior has enough babysitters to fill his own daycare. Donut is Monday and Tuesday, Sarge is Wednesday, Caboose Thursday, Sarge again on Friday, then Tucker hands Junior off to some intern at the museum he works at when he does events on Saturdays. 

Caboose seems to let Junior do what he wants, and right now Junior is filling Caboose’s hair with hair ties and clips as they watch cartoons. It’s a cute image, one she watches for a moment with the corner of her mouth turned up.

“Hey.” She says in greeting to let him know that she’s back, prepared to pace past him to the room she’s been sharing with Church. She has breakfast on the mind, some pop tarts and a glass of apple juice would be perfect.

Caboose looks up at her to talk before she can escape. “Tex, hey!” Caboose waves. “I need you to take me shopping today.” 

It makes her pause. “What do you need?” She asks. Not like she has anything to do anyways. Strawberry pop-tarts, apple juice, and then taking Caboose shopping.

“Well.” Caboose starts. “Church’s been pretty happy for a while, and today he’s not home. So I figure, what if I surprise him with something nice when he gets home to make him extra happy?” He waves his hand for emphasis. The waving makes Junior wobble and fall off of Caboose’s back to land on his butt. 

“So what are you wanting to surprise him with?” She asks. Junior gets up from where he’s fallen off of Caboose’s back and climbs back on. He’s run out of ties and clips, so now he’s busy shoving in bobby pins wherever he can. 

“I’m wanting to make a cake. Chocolate cake with white frosting, and blue sprinkles.” He says, but stays still for Junior this time. “And colored frosting so I can make blue flowers on it. Some yellow and green too, or else the cake wouldn’t be nice looking.”

Cake actually sounds appealing to her sweet tooth, and it’s something to kill time. Why not? “Do you have a card we can use?” She asks. 

“Church gave me his so I could order myself lunch.” Caboose says with a grin, knowing exactly what he’s doing.

Tex considers him for a moment and the scene he has going on. With Junior perched on his back playing with his hair and that smile on his face, it makes her own face smooth into a softer expression. “Yeah... sure.”

“Really?” He says and sits up, catching Junior before he can fall again. “When can we go?”

“Just be ready in twenty minutes.” She says. “I need to change and clean up and find a spare car seat for Junior. Where’s Freckles?”

“He’s outside, I already fed him this morning.” Caboose says. 

It’s disgustingly domestic when they’re out the door. Caboose sets up the car seat in Tex’s truck with practiced ease and climbs into her passenger seat. Caboose has the diaper bag and some CD’s that Tucker’s burned for him. Caboose has things for himself too, with his chew pendant and fidget toy that makes faint clicking sounds as he plays with it.

The CD that’s labeled ‘Junior’s favorites’ gets put into the port of her radio. She isn’t sure what she’s expecting with it, or how Junior being a three year old can have favorite music. It turns out to be the Space Jam theme song over and over with the soundtrack from Halo between each Jam. Go figure. Junior is going to grow up into on hell of a neat kid, she can tell.

She watches Caboose some of the time while driving as he twirls the beads in his hand and with the chewy pendant in his mouth. She has her pop tarts that she’s munching on for breakfast since the two boys had been so eager to get out the door. 

Caboose catches her staring and his hands go still and then to his lap. “Sorry.” He mutters from around the chew pendant.

She waves her hand to dispel his worries. “No, don’t worry about it.” She says. “You can do what you want, long as it doesn’t hurt anyone. I’ve never cared about what people think anyways.” Tex says. 

He hums and continues to toy with the beads in his hand. To be fair, she did have to have a long talk with Church after she had tried to make Caboose stop stimming while they were doing the dishes together. Just make sure he’s not hurting himself or others and that’s it. He told her. The last thing she wants to do is piss Church off, so she has tot be understanding of Church being so vehemently defensive of Caboose now. 

The grocery store has about as many people as would be expected at a little bit of time after Eight thirty in the morning on a Thursday. It’s some kind of chain that’s only local to the area, that only people in a certain part of the country can talk about. Tex likes those kinds of places, like fast food chains that are only in certain areas. Whataburger is like that, and every year on her birthday she goes into her namesake state to get one of their burgers. It's grease and meat and they aren’t anything top notch, but still taste like home. 

Caboose carries Junior around on his shoulders as the cake aisle gets picked apart under their hands. The large man picks the prettiest looking chocolate cake mix and three different packages of sprinkles. Junior watches Caboose with those intelligent eyes of his and his little hands holding tight to Caboose's hair.

“What kind of cake were you thinking?” Tex asks. “Do you want a square one, a circle, or what?”

“I wanna make one of those that has layers.” Caboose nods. “It’s gotta be three high, with frosting between each layer.”

“Let me look that up.” Tex says. It’s not like Church can complain if they spend a lot on this. Caboose gets a fun activity to do with Junior, Tex gets something to fill up her day, and they all get cake out of it. Her phone isn’t new, but she’s always had a good temporary plan that gets her local internet so she holds onto it. 

“Go pick out some pans, then we can figure out how much we need.” She dictates. 

Caboose takes that as an order to go off and do that. He comes back with three nine inch pans by the time she has everything else looked up. Junior is holding a bag of sprinkles, shaking the bag so it makes noise.

“Okay, do you want to make your own colored frosting or should we only get the squeeze bottles?” She asks Caboose. 

“We can make our own!” Caboose decides for them. “We can use a paintbrush to put it on.” 

Junior smacks Caboose’s face with the bag, getting the man’s attention. “Oh, sorry.” Caboose says. “What do you want Junior?”

Tex sighs at Caboose but is glad that he’s humoring Junior. She hasn’t asked about Junior’s strangeness due to the evasive nature of his parents. And by that she means Tucker is avoiding her and Kaikaina doesn’t like to talk about Junior. Tex is pretty sure that Junior is autistic like Caboose, but not old enough to understand that the way he communicates can’t be understood. Why else would a kid be so silent at age three? At least Caboose can help him out.

Junior’s hands flap around as they both watch. He looks so much like Kaikaina when he’s serious, what with his frown making his round cheeks stand out and his delicate brow furrow. 

Caboose nods, heading over to where the squeeze frosting is. What? He comes back with two green bottles. “We can make the rest.” He tells her. 

“Caboose, he didn’t say anything.” She frowns. Caboose can understand for her, it seems.

Caboose looks puzzled now. “What do you mean? He told me he wanted to make green stripes on the side while I frosting paint on the top.” He works his hands as he talks, repeating what Junior had said with more fluid motions she now recognizes is sign language.

Oh. “He… he’s mute?” She asks. 

“Mhm, he can’t make much noise with his throat.” Caboose says. “So Tucker wants us all to know sign language then Junior can talk to us. Some of his babysitters know sign language too. It’s helpful when we need to talk to each other in front of others too!” Caboose nods. 

Tex feels like she’s put her foot in her mouth without having said anything. She is starting to learn that assumptions do not fit in well with Church’s crowd. “Right.” She says. Tex decides that she needs to ask more questions and stop thinking things that don’t have anything backing them. Tex is sure that if she had voiced her thoughts about Junior it would have earned a scolding from Church and more dislike from Tucker. Thank god that Caboose is able to set her straight.

Time to change the subject. “Can you go get us something for lunch?” She asks. “So we can eat when we get home” she tries not to flinch when she says the word. Their home, not hers, not her home yet.

Caboose seems to trust her enough to hand Junior to her while he goes to get them what they’ll eat for lunch. It feels odd, and Tex can’t quite put a name to the feeling while she reads the instructions on the box of cake batter with Junior on her hip. A few people give her odd looks. A smaller few of people give her disgusted or distasteful looks and she flips them off when they aren’t looking. She makes sure Junior isn’t looking either, to be safe.

It still makes her nervous, knowing that some people have some kind of problem with her because she’s holding a kid that isn’t hers. Or the fuckers think that Junior is hers and don’t like the thought of a white woman with a black kid? Who knows, some idiot might get bold and she’ll have to kick someone’s ass and get banned from another grocery store. Her arm tightens around Junior’s side, thinking of other ways this little trip could go wrong. What if Church’s card gets declined and she has to tell Junior and Caboose that they can’t have their cake? God, what if someone thinks she’s some kind of kidnapper since Junior doesn't look a thing like her and isn’t her kid and she’ll have to talk to the police? She already has a bad record, she doesn’t want to go to jail over a misunderstanding- 

“I got sandwiches!” Caboose announces behind her, startling her into whipping around and clutching Junior tighter to her. 

“Oh, Caboose.” Tex says, relief in her voice at the man’s worried expression. “You scared me.” 

“Sorry.” He says, his voice dropping into a whisper. It’s a habit of his, to speak that way when he does something to upset someone. “Are you okay? Can we still get the sandwiches? I wanted turkey.” 

“Just... put it in the cart.” Tex points at it. Some hair has come free from her ponytail to fall in the middle of her face. Junior grabs onto it with his hand, but a warning look from Tex has him tugging and twirling the strands. “What did you get for Junior?” 

“Peanut butter and Jelly, he can eat those. I have to go so I’m gonna take us to the bathroom, too.” Caboose says and reaches his arms out. Tex deposits the toddler into Caboose’s arms. 

“I’m going to check out, so just meet me by the register.” Texas says. She ends up buying the three of them candy as well as their cake ingredients. Caboose shares his milk duds and Tex shares her junior mints.

The drive home isn’t quiet, and Caboose is on his phone looking up ideas for the cake. His talking fills up the space between them. She’s never been one for useless chatter, and now that she thinks about it neither has Church. They’re both the type that let silence speak for themselves, and don’t seem to care too much about words. Words, what use are words? Caboose seems to have a lot of use for them.

They have all the ingredients for the cake at home, even if Caboose has to tell her where everything is. It makes her feel uneasy, like a guest or a babysitter having to listen to the residents of the home tell her everything. She tries to not make it too hard on herself, and does as the instructions tell her. 

Caboose works on the frosting, mixing up the colors so he has plenty of white, blue, and other colors. Junior is pressed to her side, standing up on a chair and trying to help with mixing the cake together next to her. 

“Hey, Tex.” Caboose says as she’s trying to work the lumps out of the batter. 

“What?” She asks, not looking up. 

She flinches when a spoon comes out of nowhere but it just lightly taps against her nose. “Boop!” Caboose says. The smear of frosting on her nose is a yellow color, and her eyes cross trying to look at it. A small smile frames her face, and Caboose giggles at her. Tex wipes the frosting off the tip of her nose to pop the finger in her mouth. 

I only agreed to this to get brownie points from Church. Tex thinks with a bit of stabbing guilt. Her eyes go back to the mixing bowl. Caboose doesn’t catch on, since he’s still mixing the frosting colors together until he has a pretty eggshell blue color and some other nice blue colors. She wonders how Kaikaina will appreciate the effect, since she's some kind of colorblind.

Junior tugs at her pants, and she lifts him up to sit on her hip. He softly tugs at her short hair, rasping noises into her neck that sound like chatter. She should be far away from this toddler, not holding him and letting him steal a taste of cake batter. Tex has never been motherly in her life, if Junior gets fussy then she won’t know how to do a damn thing with him. 

She pushes the nervousness and guilt eating her stomach away. At least she tries. It doesn’t go away, but she can ignore it. Usually these things only get at her when she’s alone and on the road. When that happens she can just pull over and let some negative feelings fester until they don’t bother her anymore. 

The oven is miraculously big enough to fit the three cake pans. The baking time is half an hour, so Caboose and Junior skip into the living room while Tex cleans up and watches the cake to make sure it doesn’t burn. Halfway through washing the dishes her hands start to shake. She doesn’t want to break anything, so she just paces the sweet-smelling kitchen and wipes down the counters. The beeping of the oven makes her jump, but she’s determined to finish this with Caboose and Junior.

The cooling rack is already out, so she takes one pan, another pan, and then the third pan. The third pan slips, and the hot glass presses directly against her bare arm. She yelps and the pan drops, cracking on the floor and ruining the cake. Oh, oh no. Ruining a brand new baking pan and one of the cake layers. Caboose had been so sure he wanted three layers too, what would she tell him? That she was too nervous to properly take a cake pan out of the oven?

Why is she even trying? Her hands keep shaking, and she presses them hard against the counter in front of her. It feels like every part of her is trembling, the room is spinning, her nails dig into the granite as she struggles to catch her breath. 

“Hey, Tex.” Caboose says, startling her. “Lets go out back for a minute.” He suggests. She’s okay to walk, so she nods and breezes through the house to the back yard. Caboose stays behind, but then follows her back out after a minute to find her face-first in the grass. Her fingers are clenched into the ground and trying to feel anything other than the fear chewing her up from the inside.

Caboose sits next to her in the grass, keeping her company but not touching her until he has permission. When he has permission he pats her back, as if soothing a child.

Just like her to have a panic attack trying to make a cake. 

This is something that she hates about herself. How when one negative thing happens that’s her fault it manages to make her think about the other things that just make her more mad. First it’s paranoia at the grocery store then she has to go and burn herself on the cake pans. 

How that led to this, though, she isn’t sure. One thing that she is sure of is that this day sucks and she wants the ground to swallow her up.

Caboose rubs her back soothingly. “It’s okay.” He says. 

“No it’s not.” She says, muffled and in her folded arms. “I can’t do this. I feel like I’m one mistake away from everyone hating me again.”

Caboose shifts, moving so he’s laying on his back next to her in the grass. Tex feels pathetic, she feels weak, she feels like she doesn’t deserve any of the comfort that she’s getting from Caboose. “I don’t hate you.” Caboose says. “If that helps you?”

“You should.” She says. “I was terrible to you, the same way that everyone is terrible to you.” She says. It surprises her to say that, but it is a bit of guilt that’s been bothering her for a while. Why Caboose doesn’t avoid her like Tucker does, when the way she’s treated him has been objectively much worse than him.

Caboose has something to say about that. “I used to hate you. I used to hate you some of the time. But then I thought, why should I hate someone who makes Church so happy? You must not be a bad person if Church loves you, and if you make him happy.” 

Tex rolls over onto her back so her face isn’t in the grass. “How’d you know what to do with me?” She asks, just to change the subject away from her failings as a person before she starts crying on a man she doesn’t even know that well. 

“I do your thing sometimes.” He says. “It’s different, thought. Usually I just get really frustrated and can’t talk, then I get more frustrated and can’t make myself focus on what people want.” He said. “Maine helps me out at work, and Church… has learned.”

“I was terrible to you in the past.” She brings up again, because she can’t be a normal person and let it go.

“Yeah.” Caboose nods. “You used to hit me in my sleep a lot. I never told you how much it upset me since it would make you laugh and Church likes you to be happy.”

“Church doesn’t deserve that.” She says. “You shouldn’t have to be unhappy for someone else to be happy.”

“You did a lot of little stuff too.” Caboose says. “I remember you called me ‘Short bus’ when talking to someone on the phone about me.” 

Tex opens her mouth, but slowly closes it. “Yeah, that sounds like something I would have done.” She says. “That’s… terrible, I’m so sorry that I said that about you.” 

He doesn’t say he forgives her for the comment. It’s fair, she wouldn’t forgive someone if they just made a comment like that and never seemed to learn from it. “You also hit me with your truck.” He comments. 

“Yeah.” She sighs. “I’m sorry for that. That was an accident.” 

“You did a lot of things.” Caboose hummed to himself. “Church used to treat me bad too, you know. Just because I’m autistic doesn’t mean I don’t remember things. Church knows better now and so do you. As long as you guys feel sorry about it and won’t do it again then we can move on.”

God, what did any of them deserve to have a guy like this? Tex feels doubly terrible now. Why had she been such a terrible person to him in the past when they could have been friends? Why did she and Church disregard him so much? The way Caboose talks about Church is clear that the larger man loves him to pieces. How can they live with themselves knowing how terrible they’d been to this man?

Maybe they could learn something from him? 

Caboose lies down on his side next to her, watching her face with those expressive hazel eyes of his. ”Are you okay now?”

She sits up and crosses her leg under her, not caring about the grass stains she’s gathering in the folds of her clothes. “I think I’m done with that whatever it was, how long was that?”

“It’s called a panic attack, I know what it looks like. Yours was about twenty minutes, that’s what Sister averages at.” Caboose says. 

That catches Tex’s attention. “What does that mean?”

Caboose threw his arms up so they formed an X over his chest. “Nuh uh! I know this, you’re not supposed to tell people about other people’s panic problems.” He said. “I learned that myself.” 

Tex isn’t sure what to do now. “Maybe you and Junior should finish making your cake without me.” Tex suggests. “I don’t think I’m fit to join you two in this kind of thing.”

Caboose hesitates before he sits up next to her. “Join us anyways? Junior listens to you more than me, I can tell.” He smiles that nice warm thing that’s usually reserved for Church and his dog, and she feels it warm the cold dread in her stomach just a little bit. 

How can she say no to that? She just nods, and Caboose happily stands up with her. She doesn’t do much with them while Junior and Caboose work on the cake together, piling it with frosting and then decorating the outside. They’re both so sweet, she decides. Maybe from now on Thursday could be a baking day? Cake, cookies, brownies, lemon squares, and maybe Tex could try to remember the raspberry crumble bars that her grandmother used to make. She has a whole mess of family, she could ask one of her estranged cousins for the recipe. Hopefully without being pressured to come to the fourth of July party. Those always ended with Tex getting into a fistfight with one of her racist aunts.

When Caboose tries to get her with the frosting again she snatches the spoon from his hand and smears the green colored sugar over his face instead. She laughs, and he takes that as a cue to laugh as well. 

The cake looks great, with lots of blue flowers and shaky green stripes on the side added by Junior. 

“We should sign it.” Tex says. “So then they know who did it.”

Caboose doesn’t need any more prompting than that, taking some of the white frosting and writing his initials on the top. Junior does the same, writing out a big and shaky L.L.T jr. above Caboose. Tex doodles a little blobby shape of the state of Texas instead of her initials, and puts a T over the shape in darker frosting. 

“Perfect!” Caboose announces. “This is going to be great on Facebook.” 

It is perfect, Tex thinks. “Hey, uh, can…”

“Hm?”

“Can I get a hug?” She asks. Almost before the words are out of her mouth Caboose pulls her into a warm and comforting embrace, tucked into his firm chest with a warm pressure.

Caboose doesn't let go until she does.


	3. What Makes a Slushie?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A slush, sometimes known as a slushy or slushie, is a flavored frozen drink.

Carolina’s gym is one that Tex always admired from a distance. Even when she was around she would tough out the discomfort at the YMCA and take advantage of the vending machines. The choice was either buy a lot of equipment or put up with crowds she didn't have time or tolerance for. So the YMCA was always her choice. This place -Church assured her over and over- wouldn't make her have to have that choice. So she set aside a morning to go visit and get a proper membership leading her to the present moment.

She knows a lot about the gym in part because Church is so proud of it. He told her about it yesterday when they had talked about the place. All the different ways that they tried to be as inclusive and welcoming as possible was something to admire. She remembers a few things Church has told her. Every door being wheelchair accessible, gender neutral options for locker rooms and bathrooms, no loud music, everything combed through by their friends to make the workout experience as safe as possible.

Tex knows that would be important to Carolina. For such a tough woman she’d always been very open minded and defensive of anyone who was like the people she held dear. It reminds her of that time during Christmas two years ago she had almost gotten into a fistfight with a dad that had called Maine a freak. Well... that's a little harsh. Carolina is a good woman who does a lot for her friends but has a hard time expressing it. It's something she and Carolina have in common. Is it something to admire? Sometimes. Not when fighting a random in front of a mall Santa and a crowd of children, but definitely sometimes.

There are a lot of things that the Gym takes into consideration. Tex’s favorite touch in her honest opinion are the big bold letters in black that spell “COMFORT COMES FIRST” on the wall when she enters. There are more obvious things that show Carolina’s dedication as well. The gender neutral bathrooms and wheelchair level water fountains are all that Tex notices in the front. There's other things she's sure, but she doesn't need them so it escapes her notice.

“Hello.” Tex says once she reaches the front desk and comes face to face with a familiar blast from the past. “I heard about this place from a friend, I’d like to start a membership.” 

“Sure thing hun, you familiar with the rates?” York asks. 

York is a clever man, sitting so he can have his real eye on his computer and act like his fake eye is looking at someone. He looks good, as always. Nothing like the kind of men she likes. She likes dark hair, nice jawlines, and terrible attitudes. York is nothing like that. He has a nice general appeal that makes him a solid seven out of ten on most people’s scales. His personality has always been approachable and friendly. It’s a smart idea to put him on the desk. If anyone put a man on a front desk that Tex liked it would be one hell of a mistake.

“Thirty dollars a month, fifty dollar registration fee.” Tex says in answer to his question. She knows that Church and Carolina want it to be cheaper, but they still need to make some kind of profit from it. Tex knows that there’s a fund for people who can’t afford it, at least that's what the optional donations are. Under his crotchety outside Church is such a charitable sap, it makes her smile to think about. 

York nods at her. “Good, and how do you want it charged?” How long until York realizes it’s her? He must be absorbed in whatever’s on his computer screen. From where Tex is sitting it looks like Facebook. Loser.

“I’m also thinking I want the pass that lets me get unlimited drinks from the juice bar.” Tex says. You can't go wrong with fruit juice or flavored water.

“That’s an extra ten dollars a month, and makes you a platinum member. That gets you free use of the massage chairs and the Jacuzzi.” York says. “Do you have the forms filled out or do you need any copies?”

Tex already has the paperwork and hands it over to the man. York pushes back from his computer and looks it over, skimming. Something makes him do a double take around where her signature is. “Wh-” 

Only a handful of people know her last name. York is one of those people. 

The man looks up at her, his eyes wide as he realizes who’s actually in front of him. “Holy shit Texas, you could have said something!” 

“What fun would that be?” Tex asks. “I’ve been in town a few weeks, I heard that this place is starting to shape up so I thought I’d try to- you know. Help out local businesses?”

York stares at her a moment like he isn’t sure how to react to her. Tex has never felt one way or another about York, and though York supported her in her mutiny of their old boss she knew that was for Carolina. A lot of things that York did were for Carolina back then. Tex had done a lot of things for the woman as well, but she did a lot of things for herself more. York? York loved Carolina too much to take Tex’s side. She could understand that and never held it against him if she could help it. 

Tex doesn’t give York the chance to try and say something else. “Just... process my request, please?’ She asks. 

York nods and takes Tex’s offered credit card. Tex grabs some pamphlets from the front desk and wanders over to the seating area to go over the different pamphlets to see what’s up with them. What she finds is actually interesting, building upon what Church told her yesterday. She knows that she’ll have to face one her her biggest demons today, so she’s bracing herself. Running through every possibility in her head and every possible argument she could make in her head follows. 

After she does that for a minute she realizes that’s not the best thing to do. She doubts that any of the situations she has running around inside of her head would ever happen. Instead she focuses on the informational pamphlet about the offered programs, and then she frowns as she reads a line on equipment. Dumbbells, mats, exercise bands, and other misc. equipment is clearly color coded with charts at every equipment station. 

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Tex finally hears, and it makes her jump.

Ah, there she is. Carolina Church herself. “Long time no see to you too, Line.” Tex lets the old nickname slip. “Are the equipment stations coded in a way that isn’t color?”

Carolina blinks at her, and the woman’s jaw ticks as she’s torn between fighting or talking about her gym. “We’re working on adding braille to the charts, but that’s why there’s people on every floor for people who can’t see well and can tell them.”

Tex hums. “Well, one of Church’s roommates is colorblind, so if you put up stickers telling the colors it would help. Then people like her wouldn't have to hunt someone down to tell which colors are which.”

Carolina watches Tex for a moment, her face as hard as stone. “So you’re living with him, then?”

Tex looks around Carolina, catching sight of York watching their little argument. He doesn’t look away. She’s pretty sure that she sees South and Wyoming in the distance watching them, but it might be a man with a mustache and a woman with dyed hair from so far away. “You can say that.” Tex nods. “I’m turning over a new leaf, figure I should start with you all.” 

Carolina’s arms cross, a deep frown crossing over her face. “And you have to do that while barging in on my brother’s personal life?”

“I am his personal life, actually.” Tex corrects Carolina. It’s pretty much the truth. There isn’t much in Church’s life that doesn’t circle back to Tex. Now it circles closer to the few other people in his life, but she’s… almost happy to be a part of that too. 

Carolina continues to glare at her. The only thing that most people see in common with Carolina and Church are their small pretty green eyes. Tex disagrees, when Carolina is angry she looks like her little brother exactly. With the same curl to her lip and the way she looks down over sharp cheekbones with distaste. “You have the nerve to run off again, and then come marching in here like things can go back to normal?”

Tex leans back, not impressed by Carolina’s outrage. “I’ll be honest, there’s nothing you can say to me that’ll make me leave, and you have no place to talk to me about this.”

“That’s my little brother!” Carolina almost shouts. “If I don’t watch out for him who will?/”

“You might be his siister, but you’re not his mother. I don’t pretend to be his keeper, but neither are you.” Tex withstands the hot glare she gets for that..

It’s a sore spot. It’s always been a sore spot for all of them. Texas looks too much like Alison Church, Leonard Sr’s wife that left him a widower and Tex in the oddest position of her life. Director Church had never been anything other than a little more than a boss that played favorites. But that favoritism was… disturbing, so say the least. 

The Director had left hard spots in all of them. York’s eye, Maine’s throat, the relationship between the Dakota twins, and countless things over and over again. Was Tex’s uncanny resemblance to Carolina’s dead mother the only thing to blame? No, of course not, but it did make things so much worse than they needed to be. A memory of Carolina calling Tex ‘mom’ in the heat of an argument and the too-many times Director Church called her Alison came creeping into her memory. Bitter, and angry, and disgusting, that was what the memories felt like festering in her head.

But Leonard Sr was rotting in prison now. Carolina blamed Tex for it. They all received big shiny checks from the government as payback so long as they were willing to claim it. Those were facts about their lot in life that they all swallowed with time.

Tex looks away from Carolina, letting her win the little posturing stare-off. “Besides, Leonard told me that if I leave again he won’t take me back. So I’m not going to leave.”

Carolina is somewhat pleased by that statement so she backs off a little. “Since when do you need a gym anyways? You’ve always managed fine on your own.”

“Are you really going to turn down business?” Tex asks with exasperation clear in her voice. 

It takes Carolina a second too long to answer. “... No, I guess I’m not.”

“Good.” Tex says. “I actually haven’t needed a gym in a while, but me and Caboose have our baking days on thursdays and the food lasts all week.”

York coughs, causing Tex and Carolina to both give him a withering glare that makes him turn his attention back to his computer. Good. Tex hopes that York knows from experience to stop trying to stop the two of them. Carolina and Tex are alike that when their mind is set on something (like a fight) it takes more than one man to pry them apart. 

Carolina turns back to Tex. “Tell you what. If you bring in some of those raspberry squares every once in awhile I’ll back off while you’re here.”

“I’m not sharing the recipe.” 

Carolina looks disappointed about that, but they share a nod and Carolina stalks off. Tex sighs as she goes, watching Carolina’s red ponytail whip as she rounds a corner away from her. “What a mess.” Tex says out loud. 

“You’re telling me.” York says. “I have your membership cards, but you only really need the black one to be able to use the juice bar.”

She takes the cards with the intention of having a look around. The juice bar is actually the first thing she locates, and she’s torn between peach or orange. Peach takes the priority, so she grabs a cup and fills it up as she strolls around. It’s time to look around, finding all the different stations and ignoring other people just as much as they’re ignoring her. She’s willing to bet that this place won’t have men coming to hit on her and offer to help her with her form as if she hadn’t been set on her form for years by now. 

She runs into one familiar face soon enough, and the two consider each other. South gives her an even and sour look. Tex glares at her in reply, two pairs of icey blue meeting. They move on, walking right past each other with the oddest unspoken feeling between them. I don’t like you and that won’t change but I’ll tolerate you if you leave me alone. That’s the feeling she got from that interaction.

Soon enough she finds a small sitting area just inside the proper basketball gym where there’s a team of three on three playing. She settles down there, sitting on the little plastic foldout chair to sip on her peach drink to watch the game. 

One man catches sight of her and makes her blink. She’d recognize that mustache anywhere. “Hey!” She calls, waving at the man. He makes his way over without too much trouble, only getting a few shoves from the people he’s with for leaving the game earlier.

“Texas.” Wyoming says, nodding at her as he settles into a chair next to her.

“That’s my name.” She replies. “But it’s still just Tex, Reginald.”

His nose wrinkles. “And still Wyoming or Reg, for me.” He bends over and grabs at a bag sitting next to one of the other chairs and towels off the sweat beading on his face and through his hair. 

First names are always touchy with everyone. Some of them don’t even use anything other than their code names. The only exceptions are Florida, CT, and Washington. Florida never cared, CT didn’t mind Connie being used for her, and Washington only went by David from the rest of them. She’s aware that the others do have first names -not counting South who changed her legal name to actually be South Dakota- but she doesn’t remember them. 

“You want to chat or something?” She asks. As good a conversation starter as any.

“Or something.” Wyoming nods. He sits down, and she takes the man in. It’s been nearly a year since seeing him, and not much has changed. He’s still big and burly and british, with his neat dark hair and neat mustache framing his lips no matter how messy or sweaty he gets. Still no grey in his hair, how he manages that she has no idea.

“So how is everyone doing?” Tex asks. Wyoming seems to be considering her as much as she’s considering him.

He looks at her for a moment, as if deciding what exactly to say. “Where do I start?” He asks in return. 

“Maybe go down the line. Any big changes with anyone?” She asks to get him rolling. 

Wyoming has to think a moment. “Maine has a new girlfriend now. Her name’s Carmen. They met at a Barns and Noble and tried to argue about who would get the last Calvin and Hobbes box set. He’s head over heels for her, it’s very sweet.”

Tex is pretty sure Caboose in some of his rambling has mentioned a Carmen in relation to Maine. “Good for him, do ya- you all like her?” 

Wyoming’s smug smile shows he caught her almost-slip-of-the-tongue but kept his comment to himself. “Yes actually, she’s very sweet and shy but likes him too. If I know Maine at all then this one will last.”

“Anything else big changed?” She asks. 

“Hm… Wash broke up with that fellow he was seeing for a while. Didn’t quite work out for some reason but he won’t say why.” He frowns. “The guy seemed put off when Connie talked to him so I assume it was Wash’s fault like how it usually is when things go south.”

“South?”

“No I mean going bad, South had nothing to do with the breakup.” Wyoming cleared up. “South’s doing okay too. She has a girlfriend now. I don’t really know what they do but South is dying her fringe more often and that’s always a good sign with her. The girl’s name is Kendra but she looks like a biker half the time and a mechanic the other half.” 

“Sounds like South’s type.” Tex says. The woman always did have a weakness for butch women more than anything. 

“Oh! North- he finally got custody of his kid back.”

Fuck, Tex can’t remember the kid’s name. “Uh… the kid’s name starts with a T right?”

“Theodore, but everyone calls him Theta.”

Tex wrinkles her nose. “After the program that North worked on? Isn’t that a little morbid?” She asked. They’d all had code names for their private programs based on the greek alphabet. “Ugh, nevermind, I’m sure you all have your reasons. What had North get him back?”

Wyoming looks around as if worried someone might snoop. “The details are hazy and legally North wasn’t supposed to tell us but the mom’s never laying another hand on Theo. She left him locked in a car in the middle of June and someone had to break into the car to get him out.” 

“Jesus.” Tex says, and immediately thought about the ten minute lecture Tucker had given her on those dangers. It had been recently when she was babysitting him with Caboose and Tucker freaked out over it. “And Theo’s okay now?”

“Yes, minor heatstroke, he’s fine now and North takes him roller skating every other weekend since North won’t buy him a skateboard.” Wyoming snorted. “Let’s see. Carolina and York are doing fine, even if they still say they’re not dating they’re at least on okay terms now. Who knows how long that will last.”

She smirks. “How about with you? How’s married life, you enjoy being a homemaker now?”

Wyoming rolls his eyes at her. “I’m still working, so I’m not a homemaker. Me and Butch are more than fine. You picked one hell of a time to come back, actually. Butch is out of the country.”

Tex blinks at him. “What? Why, he’s not big about travelling is he?”

“No.” Wyoming says, looking smug as anything. “He’s in India right now.”

“Why’s he in India?” She pokes at her drink, noting how it’s more ice than peach juice now. Like a kind of peach slushie. Or was it a slushie to begin with? Was there even a proper slush to ice ratio for slushies? At what point did a lot of finely crushed ice mixed with flavoring become a slushie anyways? These questions always made her wish she carried her phone around with her more so she could just google them. Maybe it just has to do with what goes into a slushie. Like no one would mix strawberry milk and ice. Or would that make it a smoothie?

“Adopting our kid.” Wyoming says, knocking Tex right out of her line of thought. She looks up and catches Wyoming with one of the biggest smiles she’s ever seen on his face.

Tex’s mouth falls open. “You’re adopting?” She exclaims. Of course everyone knew it was a matter of time, but actually hearing it was something else! “You… wow. What’s that like?”

“It’s nerve wracking.” He says. “But we’re going to get a little girl. The legal process made me want to tear my hair out most of the time. Then Butch kept wanting to give her the most ridiculous names and I had to put my foot down and tell him no. We’re not going to name our girl after an obscure flower or his favorite character in Dune.”

“What did you settle on?” She asks. Tex will have to hunt down Butch when he gets back to tell her the full story. Wyoming seems worried enough about it.

“Grace.” He nods. “She’s two, since it took so long to get her, but she’ll be with us for the rest of our lives.” He smiles, all warm and loving in a way she’s only ever seen him on his wedding day when he and Butch had everyone gathered together. As soon as it’s legally possible they’ll get their documents done and make it official, but she’s never known two people more devoted to each other.

“If she’s two then Grace and Junior could have playdates. Junior might have a hard time talking to her, but then your kid would be exposed to sign language from a young age if they stay friends. Theo could hang out with them too.”

The blank look Wyoming gives her is odd. “You know a two year old?”

Wyoming doesn’t know about Junior then. “You know, Tucker’s kid.”

More blank looks. “Tucker?”

“The kid of the guy Church lives with. The kid’s black and Hawaiian, curly hair, blue eyes?”

Wyoming’s face lights up in understanding. “Oh! I know who you mean. Butch showed me a video on his snapchat that was a four year old kid like that beating Church up.”

Yup, that’s Junior all right. Little kid seemed to have it out for Church, yanking on hair, biting, and scratching meanwhile he was sweet as a little puppy with the others. “He’s actually three, but he needs friends. A new kid being around will make him get off his weird picky eating, he's polite like that.”

Wyoming gives her another questioning look. “How’s he picky?”

“Well, Junior’s been on a kick where all he wants is peanut butter so we’ve been trying to work that into meals.” Tex begins, not realizing how much of a roll she’s on. “You know how hard it is to make peanut butter feature in a meal? Tucker doesn’t want to spoil Junior too much so he’s not allowed to eat different dinners than the rest of us eat. Even though that happens he also won’t eat anything without the damn peanut butter. So pretty much everything we’re eating are stir fries, curry, and meat roasts with the peanut butter in it and my mouth always tastes like peanuts.”

The look Wyoming gives her is impressed. It’s the kind of look that makes her feel uneasy and picked apart. The words he says next throw her too far off to become more uncomfortable with it. “You almost sound domestic.” He says, like it’s an accomplishment. 

She cringes at the mental image. “God, no, I’m just sick of peanut butter.”


	4. What Makes a Relationship?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A relationship is the way in which two or more concepts, objects, or people are connected, or the state of being connected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter: Past infidelity, discussions of past abusive behavior, and discussions of past bigotry involving transphobia and biphobia.

“Do you remember how we met?” Tex asks from her spot on the couch.

Church answers from where he’s laying his head on her legs, his wavy black hair sliding through her fingers as she pets his hair. “Yeah, you knocked me out and I hallucinated for an hour and then asked you out.”

“You were convinced I tore someone’s skull out.” She smiles at the memory, and Church gives her an irritable look at that.

“All the stories I heard about you? Of course I’d think something brutal like that.” He scoffs.

It’s a funny story when she looks back on it. She’d kicked the head off of a training dummy in an attempt to impress Church. He’d always been exactly her type, but back then it had been like a man tailor made for her. Handsome, mean, and the kind of dress that screamed ‘I’m a douchebag’ from miles away. The head of the dummy flew so far and hard that it had hit Church square in the head. 

“What’s got you thinking about that?” Church asks.

“Season’s changing, making me think about past stuff a lot.” She shrugs and twirls a strand of Church’s hair around her finger.

It’s getting into April now, and marking the month since Tex had come back and moved in with Church and his friends. It’s cool enough that they have the windows open and Kaikaina can go out with short shorts and Tucker can go shirtless outside more. Not that they haven’t been dressing like that. Tex is sure by now that Tucker doesn't own any shirts other than tank tops, and Kaikaina doesn't own anything that goes below her knees. Now they don’t come home complaining about “freezing my ass off all day” so it’s a development.

With the height of spring there’s other new developments. 

Caboose cuts his hair short, shearing off a lot of the fluff so it’s only about an inch long and impossible to style unless he slicks it back. Half of it sticks up half the time, and the other half lays flat. They run out of cookies and orange juice faster, making Tex have to do frequent grocery store runs. Those are his comfort foods for when he starts feeling gross in his clothes due to heat. Or feeling overwhelmed when he loses his sense of smell due to allergies. Tex isn’t quite sure what he means when he tries to explain but if it works then it’s good for her. His dog sheds all over the place, and it’s almost a daily occurrence to see Caboose meticulously going over everything with a lint roller.

No one else does as much to change their personal style as Caboose. Church starts trimming his facial hair closer, the black beard looking less full and more like it’s hardly hugging his face. It scratches more against Tex when they kiss or cuddle. Tucker and Kaikaina haven’t changed their style much. Tucker adds different colored beads onto his dreadlocks and Kaikaina adds more bright yellow streaks to her dark hair. 

Tucker and Kaikaina have also been going on a lot of dates. But the kicker is that the dates are not with each other. The first time she saw Tucker greet a man at the door who was picking him up with a kiss and Kaikaina didn’t even blink was one hell of a shock. An open relationship, Church had explained to her. They both dated and had sex outside of their relationship, but wouldn’t bring partners back home unless it was with the both of them. Sometimes Kaikaina will come home from a tryst with someone and Tex will feel her stomach twist when Tucker kisses her hello. It’s a little disgust and a little intrigue, how they can be so happy together while knowing that they’re not committed to each other.

It makes her think about Church and some particularly unsavory parts of their relationship in the past. “Leonard?” She asks. 

“Uh oh, you about to kill the mood?” He asks.

“Am I abusive?” She asks. 

“Yup, mood killing.” Church sits up from his spot on her lap to sit on the couch with his legs crossed under him. “What do you mean by that?”

She has to think for a moment. “I know you’re my boyfriend, but… I still sometimes get these urges to fuck it all and pack up to leave. Get out of town and forget that I even have a life and become a road hermit kind of feeling and then come back to get my license renewed before taking off again.” She can’t meet Church’s eyes. “Before I can screw up more than I have.”

Church takes her hand in his. “That only makes you flakey, what makes you think that you’re abusive?” 

Her bare toes dig into the loose weaving of the tug under her feet. Her toes push through the large knit and into the matted carpet below that hasn’t seen the sunlight in months. She has to think some more, and Church’s thumb rubs circles on the back of her hand. Either of them talking about feelings without prompting is a rare event, it wouldn’t be good to spoil it.

“I used to be terrible to Caboose.” She starts off. “I’d call him terrible names and hit on him if he irritated me. He’s so wonderful and kind, and he only tells me to move on from that? I know better now, as much as I can, but sometimes I worry that it’s still buried under there. I don’t talk about this with Caboose, he doesn’t have to comfort me about my being a bitch to him.”

Church nods. “Yeah, me too.”

She has to look at him for that. Church is so expressive, and the emotion on his face is laced with guilt. “How so?”

“I don’t know? Caboose always liked me for some reason, and I’d take advantage of it or resent him for it. I hurt him a lot more than you ever did. He trusted and cared about me more than anyone and I gave him shit for it. We actually had a long talk about this about a month before you came where I apologized and he said he’d forgive me as long as I try to be a good best friend.” Church’s smile is sweet, but pained as well. Bittersweet. 

“He’s too good.” Tex says. 

“Yeah.” Church agrees. The way they both sigh is sweet and exasperated with themselves, and it makes them both giggle at each other. 

“Is that it?” Church asks. “If it’s Caboose then you can take up my Junior days with Caboose too and he'll be grateful for that. I know you-”

“You’re never getting out of Junior duty Church, you need to deal with it better.” She shuts him down before he can ask. “But I want to talk about something else and it might make us upset.”

“Alright, go for it, rip it off like a gross moldy bandage and get to the heart of whatever it is.” Church assures her. 

“What about all the times I cheated on you?” She asks. 

Church obviously was not expecting her to ever bring that up. “Well shit, what about it?”

“Are you… you know, how do you get over it?” She says. 

Church sighs at that and lets go of her hand to push his long black hair behind his ears. “Okay, yeah, I don’t like that you slept with other men while we were still technically dating. I don’t care about whatever reasons you have for it, there’s really no excuse.” His words are fair and make Tex’s stomach twist with guilt.

His next words make that guilt go away. “But it’s not like I didn’t cheat on you too.”

This is news for her. “What?”

Church gives her an unimpressed look. “Oh come on Tex, don’t get like that.”

“No no, I deserve this. But… who did you sleep with?” She asks. 

“Do you know every man you’ve slept with?” He asks back, because he is awful. 

“Tell me this. Out of the people I know, who have you slept with?” She asks. 

Church looks her in the eye when he speaks next. “Are you sure you want to know?”

“Yes.”

“Tucker.”

“You’ve slept with TUCKER?” She exclaims. 

“Someone said my name?” The man in question yells from across the house. 

“NO.” Church and Tex shout in unison at Tucker, hoping he can hear from Junior’s room.

“Alright!” Tucker yells. He’s been working on a massive block tower with Junior all day in his room, and a long clattering sound follows before. “Hey, bud, quit breaking it before we get done! You can smash it up when we’re finished!” 

Church and Tex get back to the matter at hand. “When? Where? Why?” She demands.

“It was a casual thing, alright? I’m not sleeping with him anymore. Kaikaina isn’t my type and I’m her last choice in the group of all of her friends if you don’t count her brother. So when she’d be out with other people for the night we’d sleep together. Tucker would get a physical need and I could get the kind of- you know. Things.”

“No I don’t know. If you want someone to share a bed with why not let Caboose share a bed with you?” She asks. Caboose doesn’t do it often, but sometimes he will -with their permission- crowd into their bed for cuddles when he wants a nap. Tex doesn’t mind with Caboose, since Caboose never does anything without telling them why he wants something, and in those cases he wants company.

“It’s different than that. There’s a special kind of feeling when you’re lonely and missing someone and you get what you’re missing with someone else. Like post-sex canoodling kind of thing. Kaikaina would kick me out of their bed in the morning. It was just giving me that thing I needed.”

“Intimacy?” She asks. There’s something on the tip of her tongue, saying why not Caboose but she thinks she knows the answer. Caboose wouldn’t want sex only, or to be a replacement. He would want more and Church wouldn’t want to put him in that situation where Church wouldn’t be emotionally available. She thinks, but she doesn’t say that out loud.

“That might be it.” He admits. “Tucker understands, he doesn’t make things weird.” 

“It’s just, Tucker? Tucker?” She stresses. God, how is she going to be able to look Tucker in the eyes after this?

Church’s eyes narrow at her. “Does this make you uncomfortable because you know Tucker, or because Tucker’s a guy?”

Tex knows a million terrible things she could say in this situation. What if you’re actually gay and I’m a beard for you? This isn’t college, you can’t just sleep around with men and women and think people won’t judge you. Why not sleep with women and make it easier for yourself? Are you some kind of player? Will I even be enough for you or will we have to do threesomes to keep you happy in bed? What else are you hiding from me? She knows those are terrible things to say because she has said them before. She’d said those things to Church’s face after he’d come out to her three months into their relationship. Church had dumped her on the spot and kicked her out of his apartment after that. He’d only taken her back after she had gained some information and apologized properly.

So she doesn’t say any of that. Instead she decides to be honest. “It’s not that he’s a guy. I guess it’s because I know him, and so then Kaikaina knows you’ve slept with him too. So I guess I don’t like that other people know that you’ve cheated on me?”

“That’s fair enough.” Church decides. “Does Kaikaina and Tucker’s setup make you uncomfortable at all? You always look like you’re sucking on a lemon whenever they go out and do their own things.”

That’s easy to answer. “I don’t know how they can do it.”’ Tex shakes her head. “Cheating on each other but with their permission? I get that they’re both very free-love but I don’t get it.”

“I… don’t quite agree with you there.” Church says. “I mean, if they’re both cool with it why not? They’re safe and they love each other. It’s sex, not like they actually date outside of each other.” Church shrugs. 

It still makes her wonder. How do they manage to have a relationship that lets other people into their bubble? Doesn’t the actual definition of a romantic relationship make it exclusive? Thinking about how Tucker could stand knowing that Kaikaina’s been with people other than him one night and then in his arms the next? It is such a strange concept. 

“Is that all you wanted to talk about?” Church says to interrupt her thoughts.

Tex’ legs come up from the floor and tuck under her. “No, not really. There’s some other stuff I want to talk about with you. I know you gave me that ultimatum so I want to make this work before I hit one of my low points and try to wreck things again.”

Church purses his lips at that, but nods at her. “Yes, sure, I understand.”

“So.” Tex says. “What should we do about that?”

“We could talk about the stuff that always makes us fight.” Church says. “Or we could talk about why we like each other. Or maybe what we don’t like about each other.”

“How about something we don’t like about each other, and then how we think that could be fixed?” Tex suggests.

“I like that. You start.” Church agrees.

“I feel like you never want to change even if it’s for the better.” Tex says. “If you centered your life more around self improvement you could be better about that.”

“I think you’d rather jump off a cliff than make yourself vulnerable in any way.” Church follows up. “Spending time with Caboose and living your life a little easier is making that go away, so I hope you keep that up.”

“You have issues from having a dead mother and an emotionally neglectful father that carries over into your personality.” Tex has to think about that one. “That should be between you and your sis.”

“You’re insecure in your femininity and feel the need to overcompensate.” Church says, and actually makes Tex start to regret agreeing to this. That cuts deep. “If we actually went on more dates and put an effort into keeping our sex life alive then that would be easier.”

“Your temper is the defining part of your personality.” Tex says, and the flicker of emotion in Church’s eyes shows her that one hurt him too. “You should spend that energy on positive things.”

“A lot of internalized bigotry is stuck in you. If you made more of an effort to get out in the world that would work out better for you.” Church says. 

“I think I want to stop now, this was a bad idea.” Tex decides. “And maybe we could have this kind of conversation and make some goal sets in the future?”

“Sounds good to me.” Church says and leans over to give her a kiss. “Lets never do that again and maybe look up how to do things.”

Thank god that’s the end of it for now. 

Later that night, she stays up late before anyone else can go to bed and does research, which she suspects Church is also doing in their bedroom. She doesn’t have a laptop of her own, so she borrows Caboose’s for the time being.

“How to solve relationship problems” She asks google. Google gives her a buzzfeed article that has seventeen entries, each with just a GIF and a paragraph of useless text. Fucking buzzfeed. There’s also a Web MD article. She gives it a read and jots down some notes. Another website called Psychology Today gives some good tips too.

“How to improve relationship with boyfriend” She asks google. Google is incredibly unhelpful, and half of the articles are about how to keep a boyfriend happy instead of how to make her relationship better. 

“How to love someone when you don’t love yourself” She asks google in incognito so Caboose won’t see it and ask her awkward questions. Huffpost gives her a nice article and tells her to not be afraid of falling in love while also trying to grow into a better person. There’s some personal blog posts that she can’t make heads or tails of and a nice poem from a poetry blog. All in all, not very helpful, but comforting.

“How do open relationships work?” She asks google, since her list is pretty much finished and she still wonders. Google gives her tips how to navigate an open relationship and not from an outside perspective.

That’s enough google for now. Tex reviews her list.

-Find out what the actual problem is before arguing.  
-Compliment more than complain.  
-Keep the friendship alive as well as the romance.  
-Don’t be afraid to talk.  
-Apologize when you mess up  
-Start conversations with “I” instead of “You”  
-Don’t use the words always or never  
-Consider couples therapy if things don’t improve  
-Try to do more activities together

She scratches out the last one, since it’s redundant. She thinks about examples for each of them. There’s the current problem that she has with Church being terrible about parking his car and leaving her to park in front of one of the neighbors instead of having proper space in front of the house or in the driveway.

-Tell him that the problem is that she can’t park her truck properly unless his car is parked properly first.  
-She appreciates how nice the driveway is maintained. She likes being able to keep her truck. She doesn’t think he’s a bad driver.  
-Be friendly and nice instead of mean and accusing about it.  
-Don’t just push it to the side and think that it’ll solve itself because Church won’t act on a hint even if he catches it.  
-She’ll apologize if she comes off as rude or mean.  
-“I have difficulty parking when the other cars are parked in a way that isn’t practical.”  
-“You sometimes park your car in ways that are hard to navigate around”

The last two parts don’t truly apply to the idea of problem solving, so she doesn’t write anything down for those last two. It’s a small victory, having those problems mapped out and knowing then how to handle them. 

The victory is short lived. Her thoughts wander to earlier and that short hurtful conversation. 

Afraid of being vulnerable. Every single scrap of project freelancer she might have had was burned to ash, loaded into a suitcase filled with rocks, and thrown into the ocean. She’s said “I love you” fewer times than she has fingers.

Insecure in your femininity. How she gets around other beautiful women, wanting to posture herself more to be more eye-catching than anyone else. How mad she gets when people ask if she’s one of those soft butch lesbians, as if a straight woman like her can’t be masculine. The way she gets so much more competitive with other women than with any other men. She’ll always have her attention drawn to the kinds of beautiful women who dress up and weak perfect makeup no matter what and how she resents that.

Bigotry that still shows deep down. That one she used to bring up a lot of excuses for herself. ‘I was raised in a trailer park in Texas, I can’t help it. My boyfriend is Jewish how can I be ignorant? I have a gay friend.’ She would say. Then it turned out that almost all of her friends weren’t straight like her. The first time South mentioned her status of being transgender had exposed a lot of ugly things in Tex’s heart that she had to wring out. 

“Psst!” She hears someone say, and nearly jumps out of her seat. But it’s just Caboose, peering at her from where he’s standing in front of the fridge. “Hey, Tex.”

“What is it Caboose?”

“Church says he wants you to come to bed.” He says . She can pick up that he’s probably been cuddling up to Church for the hour or so she’s been staying up. He does that sometimes, but winds up back in his own bed to sleep for the night. 

“Yeah, sure, I’ll be there.” she says and pushes her notes up together. 

“And can you hook my laptop up to charge for the night before you go to bed?” Caboose asks, and oddly he pulls a few string cheese’s from the fridge. 

“Yeah, sure, what’s the cheese for?” She asks.

“Haha, yeah.” Caboose says before he leaves, feet patting against the carpet of the hallway.

Well, that’s confusing as hell. She’ll have to ask Church about that in the morning when he wakes up. For a second she thinks about following Caboose, seeing if he could let her sleep with him in his bed that night. Being that vulnerable and needy is… displeasing to her, but the appeal is there. Maybe another time when her emotions aren’t so wound up. And she could see what the cheese is for. 

With that thought she concludes it is time to go to bed. She shuts Caboose’s laptop, stretches, and sighs at the situation of all this ridiculousness. Caboose’s laptop gets hooked up, she goes to bed, and Church grumbles at her for waking him up to kiss him goodnight like one of the articles suggested. But he falls back asleep with his head pressed to her tits and a light smile on his face. 

She counts it as a victory and falls asleep with him.


	5. What Makes Lace?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lace is a fine fabric that is usually made of cotton or silk, made by manipulating thread in patterns and used especially for trimming garments.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mentions of abortion and pregnancy are in this chapter.

Some of the greatest pleasures in life are simple things. Ice cream sandwiches are one of them, she loves those things, especially the ones that have cookies or mint ice cream in them. There must be a few left in the freezer if she hid them well enough.

There’s also those perfect temperature days that she can do her morning run without feeling sticky and hot. It is especially nice when sweat actually cools like it's supposed to. Then she can use a wet towel to wipe herself off instead of having to clean in the morning to make sure she doesn’t stink.

The ultimate thing that she’ll always love the most is the simple pleasure of a long hot shower. It’s relaxing and comforting and she sometimes never wants to get out. It can ease sore muscles, sooth an unhappy feeling, or provide the comfort of soft hair that isn’t greasy and sweaty. It always gets like that if she goes more than a day without a good shampoo.

_ Knock knock knock.  _ The door goes as she’s standing in front of the mirror, fresh out of the shower and room still cloudy with steam.

“I’m busy.” Tex calls through the bathroom door, garbled from the toothbrush in her mouth. “And indecent.” She adds. With a towel wrapped around her body and one of her short towel turbans on it’s not totally indecent, but not what she’d want to be seen in.

“I made tacos.” Kaikaina says through the door. “Want me to fix you a few for lunch?”

“Uh.” Tex says. She leans over the sink and spits to clear her mouth. “Sure, but I won’t be done for another ten minutes.”

“Nice.” Kaikaina says, and Tex assumes she wanders off to the kitchen to fix them lunch. Tex leaves the bathroom five minutes later with a clean mouth, plucked eyebrows, and towels still around her.

It’s a lazy day at home again, where she sleeps in late and tries to not feel useless. She had considered spending the day cleaning the front yard and mowing so she can have something to do, but she can put it off to have lunch. Especially if it’s tacos. You can’t go wrong with tacos. Kaikaina and Grif together run a restaurant, so whatever Kaikaina makes she’s likely to make something good.

She goes to the kitchen barefoot in sweatpants and a tank top. She’s stopped wearing bras around the house, since no one’s given her any problems about it. There’s only been positive things with Church holding one of her tits when they relax together or leaning his head on them. It’s nice as hell, since her tits have always been small and firm and good in her opinion. She's never been self conscious, why should she?

Kaikaina, for comparison, has the kind of tits that are big and soft looking. Tex knows this in detail, because Kaikaina whips her bra off the moment she gets inside no matter who’s with her or what company they have. Then she’ll wear tight tank tops, t shirts, or anything that hugs close with soft fabric. Tex should know better than to be distracted, they’re both women after all, but it’s still distracting.

Especially now when she’s wearing her usual getup on days she doesn’t work. Which is a nightgown -or a big tee shirt- with underwear and nothing else but slippers.

There’s also tacos, which negates everything else.

There fucking good too. It’s mildly spicy but the cheese and sour cream with green bell peppers tastes amazing. It’s better than the peanut butter and jelly sandwich Tex makes for lunch each day, that’s for sure. God for sure knew what he was doing when he made the woman across from her.

“I need some help.” Kaikaina says as Tex is digging into her second taco.

“Whasha’ need?” Tex asks around her mouthful of perfectly seasoned meat.

“Well, I just did all of my laundry, and I need someone who can see color to organize my clothes.” Kaikaina announces. “So I don’t fuck up and end up wearing a red bra under a yellow shirt and wind up with people looking at my orange tits.”

Tex pauses in her enjoyment. These are deception tacos. Tacos with ulterior motives. But they’re so good too. She’s conflicted.

“If you help me.” Kaikaina continues. “I’ll make lunch tomorrow too.”

This is a woman not only after her heart but also her stomach. “Okay, sure. Fine.” Tex nods. “How do we do that exactly?”

Kaikaina has a full explanation ready, and two full hampers of freshly-dried clothing. The pair of them sit in the middle of Kaikaina’s room that looks almost organized with the laundry not thrown about everywhere. “So what we’re gonna do is sort out enough outfits to last me a few weeks, then organize the rest of it by color in case I need extra.” Kaikaina explains. “‘I usually get Vern to do this for me, but he’s busy.”

Tex scoots on her but closer to the hampers and dumps one of them onto the ground. This one looks to be compiled underwear and socks. “Yeah, sure. Do you color-code your underwear too?”

“Well, I have colored tape lining the inside of my drawers, so I get someone to put the colors where they belong. Then I have someone tell me if I fucked up before I leave for the morning, like orange tits.” Kaikaina waves her hand. “But I also do need help with pairing my underwear up so it matches. I only make sure to matchy-matchy when I’m expecting to get laid but it’s still good to have them organized.

Kaikaina’s taste despite her colorblindness is something that’s hard to describe. Casual enough to not be trying too hard, and sexy. Tex is pretty sure that Kaikaina doesn’t own a single midriff-hiding shirt when it's warm. It’s either crop-tops for the warm season or sweaters for when it’s cold.

Her underwear though, that’s impressive. “Where do you get your stuff from?” Tex asks, holding up one of her bras. It’s a cute light green color overlaid with lace. Or is it embroidered? What’s the difference between lace and embroidery anyways? Isn’t lace when fabric has a pattern sewn into it?

“Oh, I have to special order them. It’s sooooo hard getting good clothes. I’m short and chubby and I’ve got a huge rack, so like, it’s impossible to find clothes that fit me. I have to alter most of my clothes myself because no one makes a fucking crop top in a large that actually looks good. The bra I have to get from fucking europe. Europe! Just because Victoria secret can’t make anything above a D cup.”

“Do you know the difference between lace and pretty embroidery?” Tex asks, still wondering about the difference.

“Hmm.” Kaikaina frowns as she helps Tex sort through everything and putting them into piles. “Lace is usually used for edging, but I guess a whole bra can be made of it.”

That makes sense.

They sort quietly together in something of an awkward silence. One particular piece catches Tex’s eye. She raises her eyebrow at the stretchy long pants. It’s so different than anything that Kaikaina would usually wear. With the dark brown color, no sequins or lace, and no rhinestones to be seen. “Uh.” Tex asks. “What’s this?”

Kaikaina glances up from where she’s pairing underwear together. “Hm?”

“This.” Tex holds the pants up. “This doesn’t look like your style.”

“Oh!” Kaikaina leans forward and stretches the legs out so the whole thing is laid out over the pile of laundry. “Those were my maternity pants! I must have worn them to bed or something a while ago. I don’t have anything living in my uterus anymore, but they’re like sweats but better!”

“Sometimes I forget you’re Junior’s mother.” Tex says. “Since like, you’re not. But I forget that Junior even has a mother? He’s got like six parents if you think about it.”

“It’s more complicated than that.” Kaikaina lets the pants go for Tex to deal with and fold. “Me and Tucker met when we were younger. Tucker was a significant asshole and you ‘n Church had one of your makeup breakups. I wasn’t the best bitch either. But then I got pregnant and me and Tucker fought for a bit about it. Almost broke up, too.”

Tex hasn’t ever seen them fight, other than arguing over who needs to do the dishes. A year ago when Tucker had gotten drunk he’d cried on Caboose’s shoulder about how much he missed Kaikaina. They lived together at the time and she was waiting back at his old apartment. They’ve been together for years, but Tex has seen Kaikaina playing with Tucker’s hair and pinning fake flowers to the ends of his dreadlocks like it’s new. Sharing kisses, making out like it’s their first time, and giggling together over nothing. It’s something she sees all the time, but not in the way that they’re flaunting it.

“Yo, earth to Texas?” Kaikaina waves her hand in front of Tex’s face.

“Sorry.” Tex shrugs. “I just- can’t imagine y’all fighting. You seem like… super solid.”

“That took a lot of time and dedication and love.” Kaikaina sighs. “Junior is the best thing to happen to Tucker, and Tucker’s the best thing to happen to me. And I don’t mind that. God knows I would have killed to have my parents put me first over their fuckin’ selves.”

Tex smiles. “Tucker’s a great dad. It’s good you decided to keep Junior.”

“I mean, I would have been fine getting an abortion.” Kaikaina says with a shrug. “I’ve had one before.”

Tex doesn’t comment on it. Some people -like the both of them- aren’t the kind of people that can handle motherhood. “Well.” She says. “Why didn’t you?”

“Tucker wanted Junior and was willing to pay for all the pregnancy stuff, so now he has a baby that I carried.” She smiles. “I’m telling you, there’s never been a better dad in the world. Junior’s sweet but I’m  _ not  _ mother material. Never have been, never will.”

“Likewise.” Tex says. “Can’t relate on the pregnancy scare thing. I was able to bully director Church into letting me get my tubes tied when I joined, didn’t even have to pay for it. If I change my mind it’d take ten to thirty thousand dollars, so if I change my mind I have to be willing to put down the money.”

“I got the same thing done about a year after I had Junior.” Kaikaina nods. “The restaurant was making enough money that we had enough disposable income.”

“How much does it make?” Tex asks.

“Hundred grand a year! Counting taxes.” She hums. “Which is fifty for each of us, but since I live with four others I’m able to kick back here. It’s a hell of a lot better than before. We weren’t struggling too bad, since Dex got his full ride to Harvard, but when mom left she didn’t leave us with too much.”

Fifty thousand from Kaikaina… hm. Church and Carolina together make around eighty grand a year, which left Church with 40. “What is it that Tucker does?”

“He’s an anthropologist. Why do you ask?”

“I’m trying to think of our household’s income. So if you make fifty grand a year, Church makes forty, and how much does Tucker make?”

“About sixty grand a year.”

Tex whistles. “So that means as a household you all have one hundred and forty thousand dollars a year. That’s wild.”

“I know right? And once you get a job it’ll only go up! It all goes to show nuclear families are bullshit. Like think about how one couple with two kids will struggle a lot, but two couples with four kids? That’s twice the income, and taking care of one household with one set of utility bills is so helpful! You don’t even have to be queer or- uh.” She pauses.

Tex figures the expression she’s making is distasteful. Kaikaina seems to hesitate, but quirks her mouth to the side.”Sorry, forgot to ask if you’re cool with that. Not every person is cool with that being used as a descriptor for themselves.”

Tex isn’t sure what she means unto it clicks. “Oh! Uh, I’m not-” Tex waves her hand at Kaikaina. “Girls?”

“You’re not girls?” Kaikaina snorts at her.

“Into. I’m not into girls. So it doesn’t apply to me. But I’ve only ever heard that being used in a bad way. Like my uncle yelling out his truck at any girl with short hair or guy in tight shorts. I’ve heard Tucker use it a few times but I never said anything.” Tex shrugs.

Kaikaina nods. “Well, nevermind. What I mean is you don’t even have to be LGBT or polyamorous to have this kind of setup. It’s the way of the future in this hellish society.”

“You’re kinda light hearted about really intense stuff.” Tex notes with interest.

“Thanks! It’s a way for me to scare off fake bitches and people who want to pussyfoot around everything.” Kaikaina says with a blinding smile. “How’s the laundry coming?”

“Well, I think I have a few cute outfits figured out.’’ Tex says.

Kaikaina stops her before she can keep going. “I’m gonna have Donut and Vern help me out with outfits. I just need you to help me color coordinate everything.”

Tex blinks. “But I just- it’s just there’s this hot pink top that would go good with this black skirt. Maybe with some light makeup-”

“Nope! I don’t wear makeup, it’s way too hard to figure out how to do it on my own.” Kaikaina dismisses. “Thank you though, I tell Donut about it.”

Obviously that would be the case, now that she’s thinking about it. Why would someone like Kaikaina need it anyways? Kaikaina is fabulously beautiful enough she doesn’t need it. She knows people who would kill to be as naturally pretty as Kaikaina, herself included. To be that confident, it’s no wonder that so many people are attracted to her. Hell, if Tex were a man she’d feel drawn to Kaikaina without a doubt.

Sometimes it’s a smidge overwhelming being around her. With how casually breathtaking she can be it’s sometimes a blow to Tex. She knows that she isn’t bad looking by anyone’s standards, but comparing the two of them is like comparing one pretty wildflower to a sunset.

“Hey Tex, do these match?” Kaikaina asks.

The panties are bright yellow and the bra lime green. “Nope.”

The shorter woman sighs noisily. “Uuugh, alright. What about these?” She holds up a different pair.

Oh, those are pretty. Dark blue with a light sequin pattern on the bra and pretty white lace trim around the edges of both panties and bra. “That’s really nice. Yeah they go together, jesus how much did that cost?”

“If these are the ones I’m thinking of then they were seventy bucks. An old fuckbuddy got ‘em for me once since she didn’t have a date for valentine's day and Tucker was busy with work. I kinda miss her, but she’s getting married next year! Nice girl, not open to threesomes sadly.”

Tex has to snort at that. It’s so absurd to her. This wonderful beautiful woman talking so open and casual about this kind of thing. She certainly has no shame at all does she? It’s wonderful if a bit overwhelming.

And so nice too. Tex’s smile slips off of her face as she sorts the folded clothes into piles according to color, going from light to dark to vivid. Lavender skirt, pastel purple tank top, plum daisy dukes, neon purple blouse, stacked up on top of each other the way Kaikaina wants them.

“Hey, why so grumpy all of the sudden?” Kaikaina frowns as she reaches over to grab the pile of purple clothing.

It’s hard to say but not hard to articulate. “I feel like you all… treat me better than I deserve.” Tex says.

“Oh, that? Nah, nah, nah.” Kaikaina waves her hand. “I don’t have any personal beef with you. Caboose is a good guy, Church is in love with you, and Tucker relates to you more than he’ll ever admit.”

“What’s… what does that last one mean?” Tex leans forward, planting her fingers in the pile of white button-ups.

“It means that I know my boyfriend, and I’m pretty sure I know why he’s so weird around you. But that’s not for me to share. I’m just explainin’ shit.”

“Oh, that’s nice but-” Tex trails off. Kaikaina’s big brown eyes watch her with interest and Tex feels her mouth dry up as her thoughts scatter away from her. “Nevermind. Let’s try and get finished up.”

“Well, can I ask you something?” Kaikaina asks as they continue sorting through things. They’re in manageable piles now,

“Mhm?”

“It’s about like, the permanent elephant in the room.”

“Go ahead.” Tex has no idea what to expect.

“Are you  _ sure  _ you’re not into girls? Because if you  _ are  _ then I bet that Church would be cool if I gave you some phone numbers.”

Tex doesn’t know if she should be flattered or flustered, so she’s both. “Ah, no, I’m good I promise.”


End file.
